If you’re considering ways to make money with your art, it’s a long uphill battle, and the competition is fierce.
However, if you’re bound and determined to pursue this crazy quest, you need all the help you can get.
If you are enamored with certain subjects, those may be the things on which you should focus.
However, keep an open mind and work on more than one area until you’ve been able to establish a niche market for your particular style and subject matter or until something better comes along.
You’ve got to get out there and market your work. That means getting your art seen by as many people as possible. Entering competitions, getting your work hung around town, participating and exhibiting in festivals and ‘chatting up’ anyone and everyone about your work is important.
What’s Everyone Painting?
According to an Art Business Today survey done in 2003, the following are the 10 most popular subjects:
- Traditional Landscapes
- Local Views
- Modern or Semi-abstract Landscapes
- Abstracts
- Dogs
- Figure Studies (does not include nudes)
- Seascapes, Harbors and Beach Scenes
- Wildlife
- Impressionistic Landscapes
- Nudes
As you can see, you have a lot of diverse subjects from which to choose. If you’re considering using your painting skills to create commercially viable pieces, you need to become adept at one or more of these genres and focus on a limited range.
Corner A Niche Market
Mr. Thomas ‘Painter Of Light’ Kinkade was a real success story of the niche market. Although he began his career painting in a much different style, he utilized marketing acumen to turn his idealized, pastel-hued landscapes into a decorative art empire. He found he could sell his bucolic cottage landscapes with far more success than he could his more serious works. He did this with so much success that it’s estimated that one in 20 homes display one or more Thomas Kinkade pieces.
This scenario is a little grandiose for most of us struggling artists, but it is a success story that really happened in the recent past. You may not be the next Thomas Kinkade, nor may you want to be, but his success just points to the fact that if you give the public what they want, you’re likely to make some sales.
Back To The Top 10 List
This seems to have veered away from the top 10 things to paint. But, what is the point of the list if it’s not for some specific goal? If you’re writing a report about the popularity of art subject matter, then the list may be fine as it stands. However, if you want to do something with the list, knowing how to incorporate it in your own painting life may be of some value.
If you’re planning to venture out into the world of commerce, you’ll probably make your first attempt locally. Research what sells in your area. See what other artists are offering and keep tabs on what actually sells. If you live in or near a large metropolitan area, you’ll find different niches for various communities in your area. One community may be made up of primarily retirees whose tastes will differ greatly from a sector of town whose demographics is heavily weighted by young urban professionals.
You may choose to stick with just one type of painting. However, if you’re comfortable with a couple of themes and are prolific, you may want to infiltrate multiple markets.
Another group of venues that have become very popular is online selling sites that cater to artists and crafters. They, too, have some categories that are more successful than others. This is another viable outlet for selling your wares, if you choose to paint trendy subject matter.
This doesn’t mean you should divorce yourself from creating passionate, personal artwork that reflects your inner soul. By all means, continue to push yourself and your artwork to the limit. However, when it comes time to pay your bills, you may want or need to consider some artistic alternatives.
